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OBYAT NEOBYATNOE


Cultural vision, or so-called. "Nasmotrenny eye when looking at the picture see her, through her, her predecessors - the stages that have evolved a definite artistic idea. It is not known whether it is good when the path of becoming the master so transparent, obvious, but most often, is exactly what happens - the artist breaks in his work the ideas of previous eras, actualizes them, developing and making them, at times, unrecognizable, "sends" in the future. In his paintings of Aleksandr Baturin's easy to find out "mentality" of his teacher Sterligov, a disciple of Malevich, Cubism, Cezanne and ... icon. There is no contradiction: both cubism and an icon depict not only visible, but conceivable, is not only eye opening, but also knowledge, intuition, faith. Sterligov created a school system that many followers that his students are actively developing it to this day and called it "a bowl - the dome": if the conditional present universe is spherical, then the inside, from the perspective of living in this universe, man, the lower half of the sphere will be a bowl, and top, covering it - a dome. Of course, it is naive, but this is nothing more than an artistic image, the age-old attempt to bring art complex, controversial, dramatic, incomprehensible world of poetic harmony, a clear ordering, to tame his imagination. The idea is akin to Plato. For Alexander Baturin, who was born in 1914, 30 x passing through the prison and exile, deprivation and humiliation, she had to be softening its tragic contact with the world, balsam. "I am by nature an optimist .... I think the need to enjoy life! "- And touchingly naive" he said. Sterligov taught to see the nature of generalizing, synthetic vision, discovering hidden in her simple, clear, geometric forms: the geometry of simple forms naturally present everywhere. " Actually, in the heart of this aesthetic - the classic formula of Cezanne on the ball, cone and cylinder, as protoform all living things.

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Indeed, in the landscapes of Baturin's all rounded and smoothly - the crown of trees, river banks, undulating surface of the earth, form into one another, merging into a single rhythmic, flowing stream. In these paintings are rarely appears a hint of perspective and horizon line as the border visible. Rivers, hills, all these soft, feminine "curved lines, as the basis of a system gone look at exorbitant space, create an impression of the same" mebiustichnosti "(an expression Sterligov, Möbius strip - a sign of infinity), the sphericity, which was the main goal, sverhideey heirs of Malevich.
Baturin has always worked from life, making sketches, so that later, in the studio, save the subject from the details and turn it into a pure form. The relation of tones he granite form, like a diamond, like extracting from it a deep light. Matter he is transparent, easy, Lightbringer, canvas surface glimmers and shimmers. Space then runs away ("Evening on the River"), is approaching (the "Blue Forest", "Autumn in Moscow"), the nature in these pictures, preserving chased classicality, is alive and moving.
By a strange whim of fate whether taste landscapes Baturin represented involuntary dialogue with the artist of a generation and a cultural tradition. Franco Viola Italian, and has this very reality imposes a burden: it is not even an involuntary comparison with the classics, but the fact that they are always before the eyes and determine the kind of aesthetic and shaped the canon, especially as Viola was born in Sicily, where preserved very rare in the world of Greek originals. He is a half-century younger than Baturin (r.1953), and has no artistic education. In 1977 he received his electrical engineer, University of Rome. The arts appealed to the 80 X, started with graphics, then moved to watercolor and oil, the first solo exhibition - the recognition of his work - was held in 1993. Often, technical education and artistic inclinations cause drama in the biographies of artists, but not in this case. That training in astronomy and space resulted in Viola in art when he discovered the majestic, inscrutable beauty of the universe. After all, Gagarin was shocked by her dazzling spectacle, but for Leonova, painted since childhood, the urgent need for this was just after the flight when he saw the Earth from space.
 Landscapes Viola called "telescoping" for obvious reasons - he is "painting", poetiziruet opened his universe, he is different than Leonova, projection, space beauty of the Earth it can display only virtually.
Critics have persistently trying to find a stylistic, artistic origins of the Italian master, and the range of their unnecessarily broad comparisons - German Expressionism until Klee, American Abstract Expressionism, including Rothko, Gauguin, etc., at the same time, completely ignored by Italian masters of the twentieth century. All the above comparisons are not based on fact creativity Viola, not on spiritual message, and on the outer plastic likeness - wide color planes, are abrupt, as if cut through the canvas line, but that expression - seizures, mental stress, emotional energy there is in these detached and cold landscapes. Rather, they are close - in their content essentially, Italian metaphysics - Chirico, Carrà, Morandi, with their desire to comprehend the invisible, look over the edge of the obvious. Even more relevant to recall Lyucho Fontana with his svetonosnymi cuts on the canvas and the idea of ​​infinity; themselves the titles of his works - "spatial infinity", "End of God", "Space Environment" could inspire the Viola.
The main topic - was it scary, terrifying immensity of the universe, its deadly, cold emptiness. "I was appalled eternal silence of these infinite spaces ... everything arises from obscurity, and carried off to infinity. Attendees. can not even begin to understand these extremes "- wrote in the XVII century Pascal. For a man XX - XXI centuries. Not much has changed. Many species intentionally, m. b. under the influence of photography, fragmentary ("Taurus", "Magnificent IX", "The Messengers"), but these images, and visually and mentally develop, grow in different directions, they have no boundaries. Viola loves the high point of view, the panoramic scope and often builds a space contours (they are then they can point to Rothko), going "from nowhere to nowhere." Land him uncomfortable, uninhabited, it is impossible for life, the trees are dead, charred, they are not a sign of life, and the sign of death. Most often, it is immersed in the night - Franco loves fosforitsiruyusche - green, purple - blue tones, gustokorichnevye laid flat smooth plane. This world is shaped like dystopia, recall the apocalyptic drama - "Roadside Picnic" Strugatskikh ("Stalker"), "The Road" Komaki McCarthy (a film by John Hillcoat). And yet there is in the nature - to a person or after a person - hypnotic, mysterious, tragic beauty.
Alexander Baturin, old already, I wandered with a stick, a bench and painter's case: "I sit down. I write. During this time, rested and went on. " Franco Viola enjoyed for its landscape photographs taken by satellite. Baturin considered himself poor, inconsistent student of his great mentors, because they are too, as he believed, was tied to the nature of and attentive to its echo in his soul. The Italian master in many ways technologically - not only because technology has led him to painting and was a mediator between him and his paintings, but also because the living matter of the earth, light, sky, air, and his imagination, he, at times, harnesses the clear line, colorful local spot, balance the picture plane.
But these two masters working in their own "frame", unexpectedly unites high mystical impulse, the desire to show the immensity of the universe. Baturin, probably helped faith, the idea of ​​Russian cosmism, our contemporary, alas, could only rely on precise knowledge of ...
                                                                               
                                                                        Isabella Whiten